Still no updates on the whole copycat
situation, so with just two episodes left in the season, I guess
they're making us wait until the finale, right? Or maybe there'll be
a scene next week setting up the finale?
Either way, the episode opens with
a screw-up, titling the first scene as '1 YEAR AGO', when really this
is the present, and the rest of the episode is one year later. Who
taught these people about context?
Anyhow, in a bathroom lit only by
candles, a guy in rubber gloves is preparing a scalding-hot tub! Or
perhaps it's full of chemicals. I suppose we'll find out when he
finishes dragging the gagged and screaming woman into it. No, even
after we see the dunking, there's no clear answer as to whether it's
actually dangerous, or this was some kind of sick baptism ritual.
There's a solid transition from the
murder tub to the one where JJ is bathing her son! The kid asks why
she has to go to work, since he'd rather she be around all of the
time. She starts to offer the whole 'people need my help' thing,
which is crazy, since she hasn't had a clear role or value to the
team since Garcia took over picking the cases, but there's no time
for her justification to continue, since Josh Stewart walks in,
making me immediately happy!
Seriously, that guy is one of my ten
favorite actors, and he's not on the show enough. Maybe someone could
give him his own show? Wait, maybe someone has!
(one trip to IMDB later)
Apparently he's currently on season two
of the show 'Shooter' (presumably playing an evil sniper, although
that's based on nothing but his appearance in Dark Knight Rises), as
well as a miniseries about Lewis and Clark!
Good for you, Josh!
Where was I? Oh, right Criminal Minds.
JJ heads off to work after handing off
parenting duties to Josh, which makes me wonder if he's a full-time
dad now. I certainly hope so. Seriously, after you've had a bomb vest
strapped to you and survived, it's time to call the whole police
thing quits and take early retirement. I'm sure you can get some kind
of a stress pension for that, can't you?
At the office we get a breakdown of
their new case! Every year a nanny taking care of a child is
kidnapped, raped, burned with a circular object, then drowned in a
tub. The children are dropped off at a hospital, church, or other
safe space, completely unharmed. The killer makes sure that her body
his found on a specific day, which is now just two weeks away, so the
team is on the case!
Seriously? You waited until it was just
two weeks away? Were you so busy with something else that you
couldn't be working the case out of California and getting off to
your occasional 2-day solves?
The killer murders people up and down
California, so there's no way of knowing where he'll strike next! But
one of his would-be victims escaped and moved to Seattle, so while
most of the team will be heading to LA because it's an easy place to
film (also that's where the killer dumps the bodies, and maybe holds
the still-living victims, but come on), JJ and Derek will try to get
more info out of the escaped victim.
There's also a Prentiss-Award winning
line, as Reid, condescending dick that he is, seriously assumes that
the rest of the team doesn't know what day of the month it is.
Big help there, Reid.
Over at the Griffith Observatory, the
killer has decided to get super-lazy, abducting a nanny who was
already in LA! Will the team be able to save her in time (they have
at least twelve days, unless he refrigerates bodies), or will the
killer start spree killing?
The episode opens as a man in a vest
has a staring contest with an owl. This looks as strange as it
sounds. Then he hears the yelling of a child from the hallway, and
sees a wall bulge outwards as if Jake Busey were hiding behind it. So
I guess he's got a mental disorder? Or perhaps this is a dream?
He tears down the wallpaper and finds
that behind it is a wall of meat, which promptly swallows his arm-
Well, this is certainly unusual for an
episode of Criminal Minds. Are we sure I didn't accidentally turn on
an episode of Supernatural? Or did Matthew Gubler just direct two
episodes this year?
It turns out to have just been a bad
dream, as the man, looking quite different with a flannel shirt and
messy hair, wakes up coated in sweat. He rushes to a nearby phone to
call for a doctor, and the voice on the phone announces that there's
a doctor in room 209. Which seems like a weird thing for an operator
to do. Is she just another figment of his imagination?
Then things get still stranger, as the
show cuts immediately from him walking through the suspiciously ajar
door 209 to a bunch of police officers running through the woods at
night with pistols and flashlights. Their dogs lead them to an arm,
which proves to have no body attached to it! It does, however have
the same ring that its middle finger that the confused man was
wearing in the last scene!
There's another hard cut, this one to
Reid, who's presenting Joe with his theory of the case - people are
being abducted in small towns around Rapid City, South Dakota, and
then being cut up and having their body parts strewn about the woods!
Apparently local police didn't know about the connection because one
of the bodies was dumped inside a reservation, which is a completely
different jurisdiction.
Since the brutal reservation murder is
and FBI matter it should have been investigated already, but the
characters note that the FBI doesn't really care what happens on
reservations ever since two FBI agents were murdered in one back in
the 70s. Which is true, and kind of super-unprofessional of them.
When listing the things that they
'know', Garcia mentions that there was no evidence of robbery or
sexual assault. Um... the two bodies were stripped of their clothes,
dismembered, and the pieces dropped in the woods. Did the killer also
leave their full-of-cash wallets next to the bodies? It seems like
you're basing the 'no robbery' on the fact that one of them was still
wearing a single ring, but there's any number of reasons a killer
could have left that on. Not the least of which being how singularly
weird it looks to see a hand with just one ring on the middle finger.
The team notices that it was strange
that the bodies weren't stripped by animals. It seems that they were
full of poison, which explain the rough night the guy was having at
the start of the episode! There's also strange welts all over the
most recent victim's back, which resemble something called 'cupping'
from holistic medicine. I'll just take their word for it, since it
sounds like something I don't want to look up.
Meanwhile, over in Rapid city, a guy is
about to leave a bar when a woman in a creepy old-timey dress asks
him to walk her to her car, so as to avoid her abusive ex-boyfriend.
Is he the next to be abducted by her evil cult? I don't have any
proof that she's a strange cultist of course, but she did go into a
bar in this dress-
Wearing minimal makeup and no jewelry
but a picture locket. It's weird. Also, considering this episode is
set in April in South Dakota, they seem badly underdressed.
She flirts with the guy a little, and
notices that he's driving a rental car. She invites him to stay at
her motel rather than the dump he's currently at, since that's where
all of her murder supplies are. Naturally she doesn't say that part,
but we know it's true, since she clearly has the same voice as the
woman from the phone.
Over at the lodge she comes on to him
while her partner watches through a hole in the wall! Is this going
to be an adaptation of that true-life story of the motel owner who
built an entire motel just so he could spy on people? Only now he's
also a serial killer?
Another week, another lack of
'previously on' copycat clips, suggesting a lack of progress on the
copycat case. At least with Frank and the fake Zodiac killer you
could believe the team would stop chasing them, since they stopped
killing once they disappeared. At least until they reappeared. They
know for a fact that the copycat is out there scheming for another
kill. Erin said he's gone 'dormant', but in serial killer terms that
means years without a kill, not weeks.
Although everything is a little
skewed in a world where every serial killer is a spree killer, of
course.
The episode begins with a Mayor in
'Bronson Springs Colorado' giving a speech about how it's the best
town in America, past, present, or future! This scene is set in 1988,
25 years before the episode airs, so presumably we would have heard
about Bronson Springs at some point if that were true.
Hey, are they going to seal up a
time capsule with a person in it? That would be great.
Literally the next shot was them
installing a time capsule. I watch too much television. It's too
small to have a body in it, though, so that's a relief. Maybe the
killer wrote a confession detailing his plan to kill one person a
year over the next twenty-five years?
The workman drag the capsule out in the
present day, and it's in pristine condition, as if it's only been
underground for three hours! Wink.
They pop it open and find a mummified
head inside! This is a lesson - go with your first instincts, people.
As the fuss begins, this man-
Walks off into the crowd! Could he be
the killer? Why is he so familiar to me?
Then it's over to Quantico, where
Garcia is explaining the details of the crime! A young blonde guy had
been decapitated years ago, it seems - although it's unclear from her
description whether people knew that he'd had his head cut off back
when he was first killed, or if he simply disappeared. Seems like
that would be important.
Then, just a day after the head was
discovered, a retired sheriff's deputy (who - possibly importantly -
was already on the job 25 years ago) had his head cut off at the side
of the road just outside of town. That's right, there's a Highlander
on the loose!
Jeanne points out that it was an
unusually long time between kills. Reid suggests that such a long
dormancy period isn't unheard of, mentioning that BTK, Jeffrey
Dahmer, the Keystone Killer, Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer.
Okay, so let's address those one at a
time.
BTK didn't have a long gap between
kills - he stopped killing, but then wanted attention again, and got
caught when he asked for it. Maybe he was going to kill that next
woman, maybe not, there's no real way to know.
Jeffrey Dahmer stopped killing for a
couple of years.
The Keystone Killer was the show's
version of BTK, so it isn't worth mentioning.
Jack the Ripper should never be brought
up, since nothing about the case is useful in the study of modern
criminology.
The Zodiac Killer did stop. So Reid is
1/5 for this information dump. Although it's questionable how
relevant a guy who stopped killing is in a discussion about a guy who
didn't.
They raise the possibility that it
could be a copycat, since over a million people saw the video of the
severed head rolling out when it was posted to - well, probably not
YouTube, given the subject matter, but somewhere online. True, but
that wouldn't make much of an episode, would it?
We then drop by the guy from the
crowd's garage, and watch him put the cop's severed head in his
freezer! Also, I'm pretty sure that he's the evil prison guard from
Prison Break, although the fact that we've just seen him in profile
twice isn't helping me identify him.
The episode begins with a complete lack
of 'previously on Criminal Minds', which means no copycat this week!
Seems like an oversight for the team. I mean, don't they understand
that every time the team goes out and works another crime they're
just giving the copycat an excuse to kill another person? And it's
not like they're contributing much to solving these new crimes.
Considering that it's Garcia doing all the actual work, couldn't
Forrest Whitaker's team go out and work these cases?
Anyhoo, the episode actually starts
with a guy closing up his corner store! Before he can close the door
two adorable kids ride up on their bikes asking to buy some candy,
and this soft-hearted guy lets them into the store. This, naturally,
gives the killer a chance to rush up and tackle him when the kids
ride off on their bikes and he's turned to lock the door. He drags
the owner inside, shuts the security fence, and that's the end of the
scene!
One thing, though - his plan revolved
around clubbing the owner while the door was still unlocked, then
getting him inside before anyone noticed them. So why didn't he
attack the first the time the guy was closing the door? He was just
as close to locking it when the kids drove up on their bikes, so
shouldn't the killer have been attacking then? If the guy had
succeeded in locking the door, then the attack turns into a mess. He
has to club the guy, grab his keys, unlock the door, and drag him
inside - this takes much longer, and gives the victim a huge amount
of time to call for help, fight back, and attract attention.
It's not like the killer saw that the
kids were coming - they rode in on bikes around the corner just as
the door was about to be locked. Seems awfully convenient that he
didn't attack that first time, even though it made him considerably
more likely to get caught.
Then we cut to one of Derek's
properties, which he's busy renovating! Did you remember that Derek
owns a large number of rental units? I did, and am a little worried
about that, since it never comes up on the show. It's possible I know
too much about Criminal Minds.
Joe drops by with some booze, which
should prove helpful for a safe work environment. Then agian, Derek
is tearing out plaster walls and removing old windows without wearing
a mask or safety goggles, so maybe safety isn't a priority of his?
Before they can get drunk Garcia calls
with a case - one that's so important they presumably have to run in
on a weekend! It's worth noting here, I think, that other than holes
in his jeans and work gloves, there is literally zero difference
between the way Derek dresses to renovate a house:
And how he dresses to go to work at the
FBI.
Food for thought. Thoroughly
unprofessional food.
It seems that the convenience store
owner was the second man beaten to death with someone's bare fists!
Also the men had their pants and underwear pulled down, but were not
sexually assaulted. Not a lot of info there, and considering the
ten-day gap between the murders, I'm not sure why the team had to
come in on a weekend for this.
I'm kidding, of course, the killer
will definitely start killing one person a day from here on out.
JJ mentions that Derek should check in
with his family while he's in Chicago, but he announces that he's not
going to let them know he's in town until the case is over. Which is
kind of a dick move. How often do you get a chance to see your mother
or your sisters? Including, you know, the one who was a sex slave for
five years until you rescued her? Even when on the road you don't
work the cases 24 hours a day, Derek, you can get dinner with your
family.
In Chicago, a man shows a woman and her
kid out of a store, and the killer notices him placing his hand on
the kid's shoulder. It troubles him quite a bit. Is this guy getting
revenge on child molesters, or at least people he thinks are child
molesters? This could get quite personal for Derek!
So, this episode probably isn't going
to be about profiling Highlanders, despite the title, so I'll put my
disappointment aside and get to the show!
We start with another 'previously on',
which I guess means they're finally taking this copycat business
seriously. Then it's an office scene where the team is wondering
where the killer is getting all of his information from, since the
press didn't know about key elements to many of the crimes that were
recreated by the copycat. Plenty of people in the various police
departments did, of course, but who could get to all of them without
drawing suspicion on themselves? The FBI or Homeland security,
probably.
Joe then wins one of the earliest
Prentiss Awards ever, during this exchange:
"Why didn't he help his career
out?"
I know that you're a money-grubbing
creep who salivates at the idea of turning human tragedy into fat
stacks, but there are other motivations, Joe. You're dealing with a
guy with a monomaniacal obsession with mocking your efforts and
ruining your lives, and you think that he'd try to get ahead in his
hypothetical journalism career while also serial killing people? This
says more about your priorities than it does the people you're
chasing, and the fact that you're bringing them into your profile
suggests that you're even worse at your job than I'd thought you
were.
The guy probably isn't a real
journalist, but Jeanne is half-right. As we learned from Se7en, and,
you know, reality, there are plenty of people looking to bribe cops
for juicy details about crimes, and plenty of cops happy to take that
money. So while the law enforcement connection is more likely, you'd
be smart to have each of those jurisdiction's cops check who might
have been talking to reporters about the crimes.
Reid then offers a truly stupid
observation, that if the killer was learning just by watching them
he'd have to be in two places at once, since he was dropping a Ray
Wise-copycat corpse in Pheonix while they were investigating the
Matthew Lilliard crimes in Miami. Except you have no reason to think
that, since the copycat hasn't tried to recreate those crimes. I
don't think he's just following them around, of course, but they have
no evidence to disprove that yet, despite Reid's assumption.
Update! It was pointed out to me that the dead woman at the end of the last episode was supposed to be a recreation of the Lilliard crimes, and I missed it because the show gave so little care to personalizing that victim. After all, the Lilliard crimes were about soliciting prostitutes, taking them into alleys, and smashing their heads in with hammers. This was a woman - whose identity is still a mystery to us - was brought to a warehouse and used as the centerpiece of a giant stalker evidence orgy. So I think it's understandable that I missed the connection.
Special thanks go to the commenter who pointed this out, because it made me rethink this entire scene, which made me notice something even more preposterous about the scene. This whole debate they're having is focused around 'who could possibly have the inside information about these crimes, when details weren't released to the public?'
The problem is that those details absolutely would have been released to the public, and the team (also the show's writers) should definitely know that. Here's the thing about 'withholding information'. It's done so that during an active investigation the police are able to gauge the veracity of confessions and tips they receive. If a woman is stabbed to death with scissors and a guy comes in and says he slit her throat with a straight razor, then there's a good chance he's not the killer. Details are likewise held back to prevent people from copycatting crimes.
Here's the thing, though - that's only during active investigations. Once the perpetrator has been caught or killed, the case is closed, and the information starts coming out in a great rush. The only reason to keep it secret at that point is to prevent a potential jury pool from being contaminated by the details of the crime. Which is precisely why all of the crime's gruesome details will definitely come out - Prosecutor's offices have an obvious incentive to ensure that potential jurors walk into a courtroom already disgusted with the defendant.
And if the killer is dead, there's flat-out no reason not to start talking about all of the disgusting details immediately.
So really, this entire scene is a giant waste of the team's (and our!) time, and if the show later has them determine who the copycat is based on their access to this 'restricted' information, it will be hilarious.
Conversely, if this whole line of inquiry gets dropped, and the show never again mentions how the copycat found out the details of the crime, I pledge to not criticize them for doing so. Also, if they have the copycat be like 'I just read about all the details on a true crime blog' I will compliment the hell out of them.
Then things get just so dumb, as Garcia
offers up a photo from their softball championship game:
Yes, the show doesn't know how
reflections work. Unless, of course, the copycat was taking that shot
from about ten feet away. Which would have been hard to miss. Also,
if I was the killer and I'd wound up with a photo where my subjects
were out of focus but a reflection of me was sharply visible, I
probably wouldn't have printed it out. Unless it's all part of
leading them into a trap?
Then their boss comes in and tells them
to stop working on the copycat case, because he's 'dormant' and there
are more important cases to work on. Which is, you know, crazy. A guy
is stalking FBI agents, actively recruiting other serial killers, and
slaughtering people all over the country, and the FBI's reaction is
'well, he's not a spree killer, so it's not worth our time'? What is
wrong with the world of Criminal Minds?
This leads to some amazing looping by
Joe, as the producers attempt to justify the team failing to do their
job.
Yeah, Joe. That'll cover it.
Then it's over to the land of fake
snow, as we see people running out of a bar in Minnesota! A drunken
boyfriend tries to accost his girlfriend in a parking lot, when a
stranger walks up and punches him, then runs him off. The woman isn't
particularly concerned that the stranger knows the boyfriend's name,
but gets creeped out when he proves to know her name as well!
Proving that bystanders and security
cameras don't exist in this world, the stranger is able to club her
into submission and then throw her into her own car. Wow, lucky for
him that she's completely alone in a well-lit, highly-trafficked
parking lot, huh?
Time for Garcia relationship drama! In
a coffee shop in downtown Washington DC (which is like 40 miles from
where she works) Penelope runs into a guy she's casually dating!
Amazing that the guy turned up at this random coffee shop she goes to
during her 90 minute commute to work? You know, half an hour downtown
during rush hour for coffee, then an hour to the FBI headquarters,
which apparently doesn't have coffee?
I know she calls the coffee shop her
'hood', but isn't the idea of her living in downtown Washington DC
even though she works an hour outside of town a little crazy? It's
not like she's from there, after all, she was recruited into the FBI
for her hacking skills, and she what, decided that two hours of
commuting time and a much higher rent to live in a crime-riddled city
was a fantastic idea?
Anyhow, Xander is miraculously also
there (did they go together? I'm so confused!) and is freaked out to
discover that Penelope is dating some guy!
Then it's time for their case briefing!
In the past two days two women have been brutally stabbed to death
and had their tongues ripped out! The team discusses the possible
symbolic importance of the act - were they liars? Did the killer want
to silence them? And then it's off to the plane.
Where this briefing could have taken
place. Seriously, why not just meet at the airport? It's a half-hour
drive from their offices, so aren't they wasting time driving all the
way in just to get two minutes of exposition before getting back in
their cars?
Then it's over to the killer, who
apparently writes books about his murders? Many of which feature
hilarious pun titles?
Why is the Nicole one in a different font, and underlined? Does he do a new edition when he's actually
killed someone?
Maybe, because he then reads from a
book about a woman whose house he broke into through an open window.
He killed a guy there, then dragged her off so she could be his
forever! I guess this happened a while ago? Because the cops haven't
connected it to the two current murders, and, more importantly, no a
lot of people are leaving open windows in Minnesota from November
through April.
Alright, between the title of this
episode and the fact that it's starting with a 'previously on' means
that it's time to finally get to the copycat killer episode that
they've been promising for months! The clips reminded me that the
copycat killer went back to the cities that the original murder took
place to kill in. I feel like that's going to make them a little
easier to catch if they have to criss-cross the country looking for
victims.
Also, kidnapping a woman to marionette
should have been pretty hard in that tiny town where the Brad Dourif
episode took place. You'd think the people would be on edge and
observant.
Then we get a flashback to the Reid's
Girlfriend's Stalker episodes, which is weird. Are they saying the
two stalkers were working together, or did they just want to get the
Zugzwang line in there? Fun fact: Despite what the show says,
'Zugzwang' isn't the moment that a player knows that they're going to
lose. It's actually a term roughly meaning 'forced move'. It's the
moment in chess when it's your turn, and whatever move you make will
put you at a disadvantage, but you have to make a move anyway,
because there's no 'pass' in chess. It's not a situation that you
necessarily can't fight your way back from, but it is dire.
But I'm getting way, way off track.
Let's get into the actual episode!
The copycat (I'm assuming) has a woman
tied up in a basement and he's planning to fillet her with some
knives. She doesn't want to be killed, obviously, and begs for her
life, but he's having none of that, and tapes her mouth shut so he
can murder in peace.
Over at the office, the boss comes by
to apologize to Jeanne for damaging her career some years earlier,
and offers to make amends. Jeanne doesn't seem too psyched about it.
I look forward to hearing more of this backstory soon!
Or immediately! The very next set of
lines involves JJ explaining that a bust went bad and the wrong guy
was arrested, and the boss made sure Jeanne took the fall! Is that
why the copycat is after her now?
Then JJ gets some flowers with a
"ZugZwang" card, and I guess that means he's copycatting
something that wasn't really one of their cases now? Was the girl in
the basement supposed to be a stand-in for Reid's lady friend? Okay,
she can't be, because then the copycat would be committing suicide
and killing her at the same time, which wouldn't be much of an ending
to this storyline.
Although it would be hilarious.
They address the possibility that the
ZugZwang call had been the copycat all along, which makes a lot of
sense, while raising a huge number of questions! Also they're calling
him 'The Replicator', but I won't, both because 'the copycat' has three
fewer keystrokes in it, and because the FBI isn't supposed to be
naming serial killers, dummies. Or is it just female agents who
aren't allowed to do that, Joe?
We finally get some details on the
Dourif copycat killing. It's a woman who was murdered and turned into
a 'human marionette'. Except no, her limps were just dislocated and
she was stuffed in a dumpster:
Do you think that's the same
contortionist/dancer who played the victim in the previous episode?
Maybe they just slapped a wig on her and figured that was good
enough. I think we can see the edge of her hairnet there in the
dumpster shot...
Anyhoo, the boss gives them the
go-ahead to fully devote themselves to the copycat case now that he's
in contact with them. They immediately find out about a new case! The
basement lady has been drained of blood and had her eyelids cut off -
but they effectively answer the 'same city' question by letting us
know that this death was in Philly, far from San Francisco where
those crimes took place. Not for nothing, it's also where the flowers
were sent from!
Then it's over to the killer, who's
printing more photos of the team! Hopefully we'll find out why after
the opening credits!
Thankfully the episode opens with a
location title, saving me all the research I had to do last week! It
seems there's a murderer in Austin, Texas! But who, and why? One
thing's for sure - if I want to find out, I'll have to watch more
than the first three seconds of the episode.
A bachelorette outing is having a great
time! If by 'party' you mean a bride and just one friend. Also, the
bride is annoyed that her friend is taking salacious pictures. What
if her fiancee finds out that they were drinking before the wedding?
Scandalous!
While the bride-to-be heads back into
the bar to find the 'friends' who the producers didn't bother finding
extras to play, a sinister man in a cowboy hat watches the drunk
friend from across the street. She goes over to get a light, and
moments later is making out with him in the back seat of his truck.
But then he can't get an erection, and she starts getting bored, so
he attacks her!
Then it's over to Virginia, where
Jeanne is teaching a class on language adaptation! You know, I
complete forgot that her specialty was language. I was going to make
a point each episode of pointing out that they never bothered to use
her specialty, but then the show didn't even pretend that language
was useful in solving crimes, so there wasn't even anything to make
fun of.
She's teaching her class about how the
same language can mean different things in different places, and a
good example is raised - French is completely different in Paris than
it is in Montreal. Although the student also says that French is
'spoken all over the world', which it absolutely is not. It's
basically just France and Quebec. Maybe Senegal. I'd have to look it
up.
Then Jeanne gets a call from Penelope
telling her that they've got a case! So why bother with this scene?
Is this the episode where they finally work her language skills into
solving the crime?
On the plane, we get the details of the
case, and I'm not entirely clear on how these murders were linked. A
guy wandered off from a frat party and had his head smashed in. A day
or two later, a woman left a speed-dating event, and was found the
next day, naked in an alley, stabbed to death.
Why would the police have connected
these two crimes? Different parts of town, different victim genders,
different weapons, different MOs... also, they call it a series of
'abductions', when we don't know that the victims didn't go willing
with the killer until they were attacked. That's what happened to
prologue lady, after all.
They try to get away with some truly
absurd logic leaps, as in the Prentiss-award winning line of the
night:
Um... how? Wouldn't being able to
spirit someone away almost instantaneously suggest more than one
person? A person to drug/drag the victim into the car and a second to
drive off? How is it not easier for two people to put the bag on
someone than one? If he'd said that sexually motivated murders are
statistically likely to be lone killers, I'd have signed off on that
leap immediately, but the idea that being able to quickly abduct
someone means you're working alone is just crazy.
Meanwhile, the lady's body is lying
naked in a ditch by the side of the road. Thanks for that, show.
The episode opens with home video
footage, as a teen is getting ready to go out in the least flattering
dress I've ever seen. It's a formless mess of layers and frills, all
in a red that makes her skin look sickly white in comparison. Maybe
the character is hiding a pregnancy? I can't imagine any other reason
to wear such a terrible outfit.
This has been the fashion criticism
portion of the review, which I will retire, right up until Derek
shows up in a T-shirt.
It seems the a guy is coming to pick up
the elder daughter for homecoming! A tradition I still don't quite
understand. Who is coming home? From where? Why?
Okay, yes, I understand the why - to
watch the football game. But I don't get the rest of it.
The video ends and it's two years later
- suddenly things get stylistically weird, as text of a 911 call
shows up on the screen as the characters read lines. It's weird - the
lines actually disappear from the screen once the actors finish
speaking, for reasons I don't quite understand. Aren't we watching a
preservation of a record, or something like it?
Apparently something like it was right,
since the action moves into the assignment room, where the full text
of the call is up on a monitor. According to the call, the two
daughters disappeared, and the father called the police. And the team
are just now getting around to working on the case two years later.
Or is the disappearance happening now? This opening is confusing me
to no end.
Just want to pause and give the show a
compliment here for understanding how to structure these things - in
previous episodes we've seen titles like 'six months ago' opening an
episode. This is, of course, nonsense, since the first scene sets a
timeline and the rest of the episode has to relate back to that first
scene. This time they got it right, and I'm happy to see that they're
learning.
Okay, then things get even weirder,
when the show reveals that the 911 call just came in an hour earlier,
and the father was confused, not knowing what day of the week it was.
Has he had one of those 'Memento' brain injuries, and he keeps
reliving the day his daughters went missing over and over again? That
would be depressing!
What I want to know right now, though,
is why the team is working on the case. All we've heard so far is
that two teen girls are missing, and their dad was confused on a 911
call one hour earlier. Why is this FBI business at this stage?
Ah, the big reveal comes moments later
- the mother disappeared the year before, and the father also waited
two days before calling the police about that one!
Um... why wouldn't you start with that?
It's context that helps you understand the significance of the new
call, and makes it clear why you're working this bizarre serial
abduction case. You know that you're not trying to surprise the
people you work with, don't you, Greg?
Also, who called you to let you know
about it? It's been a single hour since the 911 call. Assume 10
minutes for a patrol car to get there, and another 15 for a uniformed
officer to assess the situation and call in detectives. Charitably
let's assume 15 more minutes for the detectives to arrive, and let's
assume they already knew about the wife and immediately understood
that this was a super-serious situation. That's still 50 minutes
after the 911 call for the detectives to be on the scene, realizing
that they need help.
When Greg says the 911 call
happened an hour earlier, he's already got the whole team assembled
in the briefing room, and Garcia has assembled an audio-visual
presentation of the case evidence, including a transcript of the 911
call, and photographs of all the relevant parties.
And we're being asked to believe that
all of this happened - a detective calls the FBI, the call goes
through to Greg, Greg gets all the details and agrees to take the
case, Greg tells Garcia to put a presentation together, Greg tells
everyone to assemble in the meeting room, and Greg gets clearance
from his superiors to travel to "Salisbury" - all within
around ten minutes.
That's just ludicrous, even by
Criminal Minds standards.
BTW - I put the town name in quotes,
because I don't know where this episode is set - there was no
location title over that first scene. I'm just going on what Greg
said in the briefing. It's either Salisbury Maryland or North
Carolina. When it comes time to make this episode's map listing,
maybe I'll just flip a coin?
Anyhoo, I'm sure this will all be
explained after the credits!
The episode begins with a recap of the
Reid/Maeve saga, ending with her death. It makes me wonder what the
funeral was like. Did her parents blame him for her death?
Surprisingly the stalker had nothing to do with his work at the FBI,
as I'd originally assumed, but his idiotic rescue plan got her
killed, so...
It was probably awkward, is what I'm
saying.
Now to the episode's plot, in which a
woman leaves a dance club, and can't get back inside. She's menaced
by a smoking man in a hoodie! Except he was just waiting for his
girlfriend, and this is all a misdirect! Club lady just finds a
corpse in the garbage!
Over in Virginia, JJ and Garcia swing
by Reid's apartment, where people have been leaving gift baskets, but
he's not bringing them in. And his neighbours have been weirdly
respectful enough to leave them alone. At least now we know why we
finally got a good look at Reid's apartment last week - so the
significance of it being trashed this week will make sense to us!
At work everyone is worried about Reid.
Especially Jeanne, who really pushed them to meet. Derek says it
would have eventually happened anyways, although it's not clear
whether he's talking about the date or the murder. Although they're
really the same thing, since Dawn followed Maeve from the date back
to her apartment, which is how she was able to murder her.
You know what, Jeanne? You should feel
bad about Maeve's death. Really bad. It's mostly on you.
Garcia has a new case! The dead guy
wrapped in plastic and dumped in the garbage is just like a woman
disposed of the same way! Although she doesn't mention how much time
elapsed between the two murders, for no discernable reason.
It turns out that the killer drained
them of all their blood, mostly while alive, so the heart would do
the work for them. The team mentions how hard it is to get the last
bits of blood out, but then they just talk about pushing needles into
their femoral arteries, rather than going into a speech about working
the legs like pump handles to get the last little bit out, lest they
make their influences a little too obvious.
Then they head for the plane, because,
as usual, they get the first part of the briefing in Quantico, then
drive to an airport, then get in a plane, then sit silently for like
an hour before starting the second half of the briefing.
In San Francisco the killer is already
working on their next victim, leeching blood out into a Mason jar!
Which... ick. The only question left is - will he drink it? He brings
it to a fridge, so I'm going to say maybe...
The episode begins with a reminder
about the whole 'person is stalking Reid's girl' subplot, although
they don't mention that the abortive dinner was foiled not by said
stalker, but rather Reid's own paranoia. More importantly, though,
there's no opening recap about the person recreating the crimes of
the people they've caught this year, which, again, should be their
absolute top priority.
When the episode proper begins, we find
ourselves in a chapel, at least a dream version thereof, wherein Reid
is imagining his wedding day. The team is there to support him,
Garcia is running the ceremony, but he's unable to imagine what his
fiancee's face looks like, because they've only ever talked on the
phone!
Then Reid wakes up, and we get what's
likely our first-ever look at his apartment!
Which, for some reason, has five lamps
that we can see, and four of them are on. If nothing else, you can
say Reid's not a guy who worried about wasting power. He also seems
to have fallen asleep on the couch in his clothes, which seems weird,
because if he was going to do that, I'd expect there to be a book on
his chest or the floor next to him, since he's absolutely the kind of
guy to fall asleep reading all the time. That can't be the case,
though, since, despite the armada of dim lamps, there's no light
source anywhere near the couch, so I can't imagine he'd be able to
read very well.
Maybe he simply drank himself into a
stupor and passed out?
Probably not.
Then it's over to a payphone to talk to
his ladylove once more! This might be the last year that this
particular plot point would word. Also, why not call her on her cell
phone? You had no trouble doing that the other night, did you?
But no, he uses an elaborate keycode to
make it so you can call the cellphone back (nice touch!) and then she
dials him back. Or does she?!?! There's a computer-altered voice on
the line which says 'Zug Zwang' twice, and then hangs up on him. Has
the stalker attacker her? Is it her doing a creepy voice because
she's crazy? I can't wait to find out!
Reid rushes to Greg and explains the
backstory about his relationship. They started corresponding in
letters, and only used codenames because she was afraid of her
stalker. Also, she's apparently a geneticist! Is the stalker an evil
clone she built? Obviously not.
Apparently they share a Sherlock Holmes
fascination, and now the stalker has decided to brand himself a
cut-rate Moriarty! Also, Zug Zwang is apparently the point in chess
where a loss becomes inevitable, and smart people surrender, so it's
actually a pretty good thing to try to intimidate someone with.
Greg brings in the rest of the team,
who are all dressed-down, because it's a Saturday, I guess, and the
FBI building doesn't have a dress code on Saturdays? They all agree
to help Reid out... after the credits!
So we finally saw a bit of one of Joe's
books on the show! And here it is!
-blow to the head. During the most
recent round of killings, Mullens and his son would force the victim
to read from a script in order to recreate the past killings as
accurately as possible.
In 1994, Mullens - aware of the media
attention surrounding his crimes - went dormant. He settled into his
life as an electrician before retiring. Colby idolized his father and
eventually became an electrician as well. But as the years drifted
on, Mullens became more forgetful and agitated. He was later
diagnosed with Alzheimer's Syndrome. Afraid of losing his father as
well, Colby began aiding the older Mullens in a new string of
murders. This was a contained effort to help Mullens remember his
past murders and the victims.
Chapter 5: The Piano Man Sings
Hamilton Bartholomew - The Piano Man -
is an anger-excitation rapist who wants to traumatize his victims and
make them suffer. After a brief period of-
Okay, that wasn't great. Especially because chapter four apparently ends just as the story of the copycat father/son serial killing team was just getting started. Is that all the book is? Brief outlines of the crimes written in super-dry prose? Or is that just a function of the prop having been written up in a rush before the insert was shot?
Still, I'm really
happy they went to the trouble of doing this, rather than just
inserting generic text, but this doesn't read like a true crime book.
The first section, about the father/son serial killing team, is
disjointed and feels like a bad recap of the episode. Kind of horning
in on my territory there, guys. Also, what did you mean by the word
contained? I feel like you were using the wrong word there.
In any event, I restate my belief that
there would absolutely be a market for a book of Joe's reminiscences about the show's cases written in the style of one of John Douglas' books.
The show opens in a forest, where a
woman in a white robe is worshiping nature! Can a human sacrifice be
far behind? She gathers some plants and brings them to the altar,
which is now covered in maggots! So she's just crazy, I guess?
Then a man shows up, calls her 'Patty',
makes her bite down on a stick and clubs her into unconsciousness.
What?
Over at Quantico, Jeanne interviews
Reid about his date with the mystery lady, and is disappointed to
hear that it never actually happened. She tries for more details, but
Reid is, as ever, super-private about his personal life.
Okay, turns out the maggots weren't the
sign of craziness after all! The killer murdered Patty by hammering a
chisel into the back of her neck, and spread maggots all around the
crime scene. Just as he had with another victim two days earlier!
That's how Penelope presents the
case, by the way. Starts with the pretty white woman who got killed
in the opening seconds of the episode, then mentions the black guy
who got killed two days earlier. Why would you organize a
presentation like this? Shouldn't you start with the earliest crime
and move forward? It's almost as if Penelope is framing this all for
the benefit of the audience, rather than the people in the room with
her!
The team talks about the oddness of
making victims lie down before killing them, and suggests that he may
know them, and not want to look at their faces during the murder.
Which is one hell of a leap. The super-strange method of execution -
chisel to the brain stem - it seems like the more relevant reason for
them lying down is to make that death possible.
Hey, the team finally realizes that
spree killers are a thing, with Jeanne suggesting that the killer is
one! JJ shoots down the idea, since the killer is mostly likely
targeting specific people and murdering them in an elaborate way,
leaving no clear evidence behind. Other than, you know, the identical
chisels that he had to have bought somewhere. I'm guessing he also
purchased the maggots, since those can be hard to farm in the
quantities he needed for his tableaus.
Still, it's nice to see them
acknowledging the existence of spree killers, since basically
everyone they chase fits that category.
Then it's off to Florida for a check-in
with the killer! It seems I was wrong about buying the maggots - the
guy travels with a box full of flies and a pot full of rotting meat
so that he can have a consistent supply of maggots! I still think his
facility is a little small for the absurd volume of maggots he was
deploying, but it's nice to see the producers worried about logistics
for once.
The episode kicks off 'Three Months
Ago', which is a kind of a dumb thing to happen in literally the
first second of the episode. This is the first scene - 'ago' is
therefore a meaningless concept, since you haven't established a
'now' from which we are flashing back. Just put 'three months later'
over the next scene, dummies.
Yes, you can make the argument that, as
an episodic TV show, each individual episode is meant to be taking
place on or around the day it airs (which is why they botched a
perfectly good killer Santa episode back in season 3), but I would
argue that particular fiction is one that no viewer cares about, or
would complain if it were done away with.
Okay, back to the show. A creepy old
man is abusing his nurse with insults until the nurse ups his
morphine to knock him out (or perhaps kill him? Probably not.), but
their drama is interrupted when the coma patient in the next bed
suddenly wakes up and starts flailing around. Which he has the
strength to do, despite having been in a coma. Maybe he was only
there for a couple of days?
Anyhoo, we cut to the present (three
months later), and discover that the coma man Brad MFing Dourif!
Officially the best actor to have ever appeared on this show! Sorry
Tony Todd, but it's true. They took eight years to replace you,
though, so that's something.
Hey has Gregg Henry ever been on
Criminal Minds? Okay, that's one tangent too far.
A little person runs into the backroom,
worried that someone is going to hear the woman that he and Brad have
kidnapped. Brad's not concerned, though, because he's super-crazy!
Then there's a looped line where Brad asks 'Mr. Conrad' if he agrees,
which was presumably dropped in there because they noticed that after
the final cut the scene where the little person's name was introduced
has been removed.
Okay, Brad Dourif, a little person, a
weird flashback opening the episode... did Matthew Grey Gubler direct
this one? If so, it's going to be awesome!
Speaking of Reid, he's back on a
payphone talking to mystery woman! She announces that she's not being
stalked any more! No calls or emails or anything like that, and now
she thinks it's finally going to be safe for them to meet! More
importantly, though, Reid mentions that stalkers generally stop
stalking when they've moved onto another target. Which, to its
credit, the episode kind of blows past, since they don't want to
shine too bright a light on what's going on. Which is that her
stalker is now the team's stalker. Or she's crazy and also the
villain.
Now it's time for the briefing! A guy
was hanged, had his hair dyed black, then stuffed into a tiny box and
left on the side of the road. The box was so tiny that the killers
had to break his legs and double him over! Then it happened again,
only this time the killers kidnapped a couple, killing the man and
keeping the woman, who, naturally, is in the backroom with Brad and
Conrad.
Wait a minute, Conrad has black
hair, and he would fit neatly into the boxes... are they trying to
turn the men they're killing into versions of one of the killers? If
so... why?
Also, every single one of the
characters says the dead guys had been 'hung', because the writers of
this show don't know how the English language works. Which is
especially embarrassing considering that they've just added a
character who is a DOCTOR OF LANGUAGE.
Back to Brad, who's tormenting his
kidnappee by putting a bow in her hair and taking old-timey photos of
her as she weeps! Yikes!
Time for the opening credits, meaning
we'll get to find out who directed this one soon! Although it may not
be Gubler, since there hasn't been any notable music yet, sadly.
We open on a flame flickering in a brazier, as a voice talks about the inevitability of death and how it can motivate people to do exceptional things. Like join a serial killing cult, presumably? I found the voice distractingly familiar, and wonder if it's Chuck's law partner from Better Call Saul. I can't wait to find out!
Turns out that the 'cult speech' was the opening of a motivational seminar, and it absolutely was Hamlin from Better Call Saul.
Hamlin goes into his patter about how everyone has something inside of them that they can share with the world in order to fully actualize themselves. So, is he a serial killer, or is he just to inspire a serial killer to go out and become his best self? By, you know, serial killing. I don't feel like there's any other options for this story.
After the show, Hamlin glad-hands a fan from the audience, then avoids autograph seekers in hopes of having some private time. We follow the fan home to her humble abode, where she's immediately murdered! That was quick. Was Hamlin the killer, since he left the building right after her, or did he simply inspire the killer to start living in the now?
I kind of hope it's the second, because then this would be essentially the exact same episode as the Vampire Rock episode, in which people think that a celebrity committed a crime but it was really just a deranged fan.
At Quantico, Derek gets an invitation to some sort of ceremony at the British Consulate, but he doesn't want to go - Penelope wants to find out why, so it's presumably snooping time! Penelope then announces the case - two people dead in Seattle, with the same message plastered on the wall: Hear Your Evil, See Your Evil.
Its obvious similarity to another famous saying gives Jeanne a chance to show off her complete useless linguistic profiling skills, suggesting that the 'mistake' could be the result of someone being a non-native speaker of English. Sadly, the form that the mistake took offers no clues as to what the person's first language might be. Jeanne essentially used two sentences to say that she has no information to offer. So... I guess that was a useful ten seconds for all involved?
The team tries to figure out what the message might mean - I wonder if anyone bothered Googling it... Then use some of the widely-discredited 'organized/disorganized' jargon to talk about how weird it is that the killer was able to break into the apartments so expertly, but then seemingly went nuts, stabbing his victims dozens of times. I don't see any real contradiction there - vicious overkill stabbing is what the guy is into, and he broke into the house carefully because he didn't want to get caught. It's not like you found evidence of random, mindless carnage - destroyed rooms, fingerprints everywhere, defiled bodies. There was a lot of stabbing, but then careful drawing on the wall in blood, and a general lack of evidence. What seems disorganized about this to them?
We then get a look at the killer's hidey-hole, where he's writing notes about his latest murder!
So apparently the victim said 'oh god, it's you!' which suggests that she recognized her killer. That might seem like it's pointing to Hamlin, she obviously extensively talked with someone else working at the show in a pre-interview, because Hamlin was able to single her out from the stage and talk about her most profound dreams. He's not pretending to be a psychic, so there's at least one person who's more likely to know where she lives than Hamlin is.
I'm weirdly invested in him not being the killer. Huh.
Also, in a possibly related note, when we see the flashback to her attack, she said 'oh my god, what are you-', as opposed to what's written on the note. Will that be significant? Let's find out after the Credits!
The episode opens on a schoolbus, in which a bunch of teenagers are preoccupied with teenage things. Flirting, video games, plans for the upcoming winter formal, because in America I guess there's like two proms a year?
The school bus is waved down by a red-haired gent next to a range rover, and I immediately have to stop and question this whole setup.
That a limited-access, six lane divided highway. The fact that there's a schoolbus full of kids on it means that this is either 7:45AM or 3:45PM. How on earth could there be a road that huge anywhere in America at those times of day so empty that a guy can literally stop in the middle of the road (he's not pulled over to the shoulder or anything) and no one has stopped or called the authorities? Did he get there and pull out just five seconds earlier? Wouldn't that mean he had to blast passed the bus at something like twice the speed limit? And if he did, how could he know that another car wouldn't pass the bus and spot him?
What I'm saying is, whatever he's planning to do, this is the worst possible way to start it off.
Because everyone's awful at their job, the bus driver and teacher (maybe it's a middle-of-the-day field trip? In any case, there's still no excuse for the empty road.) decide not to call roadside assistance, or find it suspicious that a guy who possibly ran out of gas stopped in the middle of the road. The bus driver thinks it might be a flat tire, and says they shouldn't call the cops, but that's insane, because a car in the middle of the road is a huge safety hazard that has to be dealt with immediately. Also, you can tell if a car has a flat tire by looking at it.
Once the bus driver opens the door - are they not told that they should never do this? You can just have the guy come around to the window if you want to talk to him - a second guy runs out of the woods and shoots the driver in the leg, then threatens the passengers to not use their cell phones. Ominously, both men are now wearing gas masks! Although the shooter has long, unkempt hair that suggests that he's pretty young.
Of to Quantico, where Penelope runs into Xander, then avoids some kind of an awkward conversation with him by dragging him into the war room! They need all the help they can get to deal with this abduction!
The team is running down the facts for a couple of featured extras-
And before I get to the actual briefing, can we just comment on how weirdly lazy the costuming has gotten on the show? Why does that guy have a badge and gun on his hip? The badge type suggests that he's a DC cop, so it's odd that he's here for a briefing, and why on earth does he have his gun on him? They don't let you keep those in federal buildings. If he works there it would be locked away with his stuff, if he's a visitor it would be downstairs in the gun lockers. Were they that afraid we wouldn't know he was law enforcement just based on context?
So, the abduction happened in the DC area at 1PM, so yeah, the lack of traffic is completely insane/inexcusable. The bus has disappeared completely, with helicopters and patrol cars being completely unable to find it! Also, they've apparently called every phone on the bus and nobody answered... shouldn't they have found out that all of the phones had their batteries removed? Because unless the villains took that step, wouldn't they have been found already?
They also mention that the kids dropped off at the first two stops got home just fine, so I guess this was the regular bus home? At 1PM? I mean, I know I've been out of high school for a long time, but do teens normally go home at 1PM?
